I’m a real fan of AppSumo, and really do look forward to their emails to see what kinds of cool offers will be on hand for the coming days. It’s always a grab bag pricewise, which adds to the fun. Some offers are free, some are $249, many come in between $25-$99. Generally, about half of the deals interest me – I’m not a coder, some of the products/services are far too tech-focused anyway, and frankly, cost often dissuades me from a buy.
A recent purchase was “One-Hour Marketing Plan”, where Startup Foundry’s Paul Hontz interviews The Image Group’s Jason Kehrer about the simple steps needed to create a lean, useful, and more or less evergreen marketing plan (in one hour, no less). Here’s a distillation of what the video promised:
Auditing your biz and auditing your communications tools
Picking the right communications tools (i.e. web, video, social media, etc)
Voice/tone, responsibilities
Follow-through/measurements
Discovery process (long, short, guided, unguided) prepares you for a great wireframe, which prepares you for a beautiful design and a solid, wise build
Bringing audience profiles
Designing a reasonable content strategy
How to hire freelancers/agencies
I’ve been marketing ideas and organizations online for the past three years, but it’s always slapdash and ill-planned. I figured that this video, which states “Don’t spend weeks on stuff that should take hours.” would be a good way to start a “proper” marketing plan, especially when it comes to the new hotness of Denver Seitan Company. :)
I was slightly disappointed. Like many of AppSumo’s action videos, the insider knowledge was often common sense or oft-repeated truisms like “Be sure to measure.” or “Write it down.” While the video goes into good detail on wireframing websites with an eye to marketing, I didn’t buy a video on how to wireframe a website while thinking ahead. I wanted an easy-to-follow, practical guide for building my marketing plan in an hour.
Kehrer clearly understands this stuff, and it was great to hear him give some examples and especially show off Billy Bear Hug as a page to stage creation from a wireframe. Still, I could have used a little more information about audience research and what he refers to as “discovery”, at least in the “What do we want this to do and who do we want to do it to?” sense. Some pointers on thought experiments or a better-explained guide to determining an audience would have been nice.
The video lists at $39, but my checking account shows a debit of $25, so maybe there was a fantastic accidental discount there. In any case, I’d say that this action video was not quite worth the cost. Blah blah gripe gripe I’m still going to buy their stuff because AppSumo is good people.